Monday, June 22, 2009

SOT(N): Madeline Peyroux, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

Because it's too late for it to be song of the day, obviously. (Ba dum, chik)

In all seriousness though, as ready as I am to leave my job, I'm starting to get nostalgic about DC. I know I don't want to live here forever, but this is a great city with a lot of lovely people and leaving it is going to be very hard for me to do in a few days.

To those of you who have been in my life this year-- thank you for your friendship. I have been busy a lot, I know. Cranky a lot, as well. But know that despite all of my personal growing pains and workplace frustrations, getting to know this town and the people in it has been a very big blessing to me.

Why you should love it:

Welp, I've talked about her before and I'll say it again. Madeline Peyroux is awesome.

On Saturday, I went with my dear friend Abby (who is definitely one of those people that I'm going to be lonesome for in a few weeks) to see her perform at GW's Lisner Auditorium, which is, by the way, an awful venue for a jazz concert--not intimate or loungey at all! But despite the environment, Peyroux and her band were great!

She opened the night with a pair of "drinking songs"-- two bluesy numbers that showed a much darker side to her than I was used to. But she anticipated this, I guess, because she went on to "cheer us up" with the effervescent Don't Wait Too Long, which perpetually plays on my "girlie happiness" Pandora station. By far, though, the best part of the night was a set of parisian street songs her four piece band came forward to play with her. With the pianist on the accordion, the guitarist on ukulele, the bassist on a standing bass, and the drummer on a cardboard box, I almost thought I was in Paris instead of that god-awful auditorium.

I will admit this.. Peyroux does appeal to the Norah Jones/Michael Buble crowd-- there were more than a few "mom & dad's date nights" happening on Saturday. But frankly, her music is wistful and jazzy and romantic, and if that is wrong, well, I don't want to be right.

1 comment:

Peyroux's version of Bob Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" was itself covered and used as the wedding song for one of my closest friends. One of her friends sang the same arrangement of the song. Admittedly I thought it was a bit of a strange choice for a wedding song - but somehow it worked!